Intangible Asset Book…forthcoming

Introduction: The following represents a snippet of my forthcoming (second) book on matters related intangible assets. The first book titled, ‘Safeguarding Intangible Assets’ was published by Elsevier in July, 2014. In my new, yet to be published book, readers will be presented with multiple and various ‘solution sets’ to address real, current, and recurring challenges related to developing, unraveling, and exploiting their IA’s.

Another, not insignificant contributor to businesses general reluctance to consistently engage their IA’s, i.e., development, acquisition, exploitation, etc., stems from a parallel business – economic reality that, at best, produces confusion. That is, IA’s are seldom, if ever, reported – accounted for on company balance sheets or financial statements, matters aggressively addressed throughout this book.

This very conventional absence of reporting and accounting of businesses IA’s and other IA activity, ownership, and exploitation are routinely rationalized (sustained) by questioning…

– questioning – being unfamiliar with the relevancy of IA’s, which, in turn,
often translates to…

– questions about why should any (businesses) devote time and possibly resources to monitoring, safeguarding, and otherwise achieving operational familiarity with assets which are (a.) intangible, and (b.) not reported?

To the operationally unfamiliar, either-both questions warrant answers which, I point out, are objectively provided throughout my forthcoming book.

The facts are, continued reluctance to engage and acknowledge businesses IA’s, and otherwise act dismissively toward their contributory – operational role and value, wholly disregards the replicable, consistent, objective, and global economic fact (real business reality) that 80+% of most company’s value, sources of revenue, competitiveness, and sustainability lie in – evolve directly from IA’s.

It is all-the-more troublesome when business pundits misleadingly portray (characterize, attribute) a failed business initiative or a poorly executed transaction to single managerial misreads, missteps, and/or miscues, when, upon review (unraveling) by a competent IA strategist and risk specialist, it not infrequently becomes clear that the problem(s) is attributable to…

• operational – circumstantial unawareness of and/or unfamiliarity with,
how, when, where, and which IA’s were in play, and

• those IA’s were not acted on (executed, exploited, leveraged) effectively,
lucratively, or competitively,

– nor were risks to the IA’s in play, which can undermine their competitiveness, revenue generation, and/or value) identified, mitigated, or the assets safeguarded accordingly.

Failure on either of these levels, leaves asset value and competitiveness ‘on the table’ and out of the business initiative-transaction equation.

Unfortunately, such post-transaction analysis conducted by IA strategists and risk specialists are far too routine. In other words, a significant percentage of business leaders remain dismissive of the necessity to distinguish – measure the contributory role, value, and performance of IA’s in play for each (often nuanced) transaction and circumstance they elect to undertake. That’s often in addition to mistakenly ‘lumping’ all IA issues into the non-denominational bucket of referred to as ‘goodwill’.

Similarly, some business leaders, at least initially, find it challenging to recognize and commence resolution of business issues that stem from – are rooted in their IA’s, e.g., value, revenue, performance, and competitive advantage, etc. Therefore, in numerous instances, those in leadership roles accustomed to recognizing – measuring business activities in (tangible) ‘bottom line’ outcomes, the practical realities associated with the now overwhelmingly dominant and contributory role and value of IA’s, presents challenges to translate anew or cross-reference.

Still, in numerous instances (business) problem awareness and identification initially emerges from analysis of financial statements and balance sheets. The position conveyed throughout this book however, is that reliance on periodic financial statements and balance sheets which are absent essential data describing IA performance and value, business problem-issue resolution will likely be arbitrary and unsystematic. That is, until leadership achieves operational level familiarity with and acknowledge IA’s are almost always in play and are absolutely essential to painting a complete value-competitive-revenue portrait of a company’s circumstance.

It would be imprudent for the author to imply that all business operating challenges are rooted in leadership exhibiting dismissiveness toward or mishandling of IA’s in play. However, given IA’s increasingly significant and lucrative role in most every facet of business operability, stewardship, oversight, and management, safeguarding and mitigating risk to IA’s indeed warrants operational level familiarity.

This book respectfully and comprehensively engages business-company problem identification and resolution from the standpoint of accommodating a range of industry sectors prospective reader interests, insofar as…